Since the late 1960s the Indonesian island of Batam has been transformed from a sleepy fishing village to a booming frontier town, where foreign investment, mostly from neighboring Singapore, ...
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Since the late 1960s the Indonesian island of Batam has been transformed from a sleepy fishing village to a booming frontier town, where foreign investment, mostly from neighboring Singapore, converges with inexpensive land and labor. Indonesian female migrants dominate the island's economic landscape both as factory workers and as prostitutes. Indonesians also move across the border in search of work in Malaysia and Singapore as plantation and construction workers or maids. Export-processing zones such as Batam are both celebrated and vilified in contemporary debates on economic globalization. The book moves beyond these dichotomies to explore the experiences of migrants and tourists who pass through Batam. The book portrays globalization in terms of relationships that bind individuals together over long distances. It offers a unique ethnographic perspective, drawing together the worlds of factory workers and prostitutes, migrants and tourists, and creating an account of everyday life in a borderland characterized by dramatic capitalist expansion. The book uses three Indonesian concepts (merantau, malu, liar) to shed light on the mobility of migrants and tourists on Batam. The first refers to a person's relationship with home while in the process of migration. The second signifies the shame or embarrassment felt when one is between accepted roles and emotional states. The third is used to identify those who are out of place, notably squatters, couples in premarital cohabitation, and prostitutes without pimps. These sometimes overlapping concepts allow the book to move across geographical and metaphorical boundaries and between various economies.Less

The Anxieties of Mobility : Migration and Tourism in the Indonesian Borderlands

Johan A. Lindquist

Published in print: 2008-10-31

Since the late 1960s the Indonesian island of Batam has been transformed from a sleepy fishing village to a booming frontier town, where foreign investment, mostly from neighboring Singapore, converges with inexpensive land and labor. Indonesian female migrants dominate the island's economic landscape both as factory workers and as prostitutes. Indonesians also move across the border in search of work in Malaysia and Singapore as plantation and construction workers or maids. Export-processing zones such as Batam are both celebrated and vilified in contemporary debates on economic globalization. The book moves beyond these dichotomies to explore the experiences of migrants and tourists who pass through Batam. The book portrays globalization in terms of relationships that bind individuals together over long distances. It offers a unique ethnographic perspective, drawing together the worlds of factory workers and prostitutes, migrants and tourists, and creating an account of everyday life in a borderland characterized by dramatic capitalist expansion. The book uses three Indonesian concepts (merantau, malu, liar) to shed light on the mobility of migrants and tourists on Batam. The first refers to a person's relationship with home while in the process of migration. The second signifies the shame or embarrassment felt when one is between accepted roles and emotional states. The third is used to identify those who are out of place, notably squatters, couples in premarital cohabitation, and prostitutes without pimps. These sometimes overlapping concepts allow the book to move across geographical and metaphorical boundaries and between various economies.

This chapter highlights eight main lessons that can be learned from Hawaii’s experience in developing a premier destination since statehood. First, it argues that tight and pervasive government ...
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This chapter highlights eight main lessons that can be learned from Hawaii’s experience in developing a premier destination since statehood. First, it argues that tight and pervasive government control is not always necessary to produce a dream destination. Second, the government can exacerbate or be a solution to tourism’s ills. Next, the chapter contends that taxing tourism need not harm tourism. Furthermore, admission fees are an excellent source of revenue to pay for the upkeep of popular natural attractions. In addition, responsibility to raise revenues should go hand in hand with the responsibility to spend. Also, incentives may not be necessary to induce tourism investment. The next lesson is that money spent on collecting basic tourism data is well spent. And finally, in developing tourism, the welfare of residents must be paramount.Less

Lessons from Hawaii’s Experience

James Mak

Published in print: 2008-03-06

This chapter highlights eight main lessons that can be learned from Hawaii’s experience in developing a premier destination since statehood. First, it argues that tight and pervasive government control is not always necessary to produce a dream destination. Second, the government can exacerbate or be a solution to tourism’s ills. Next, the chapter contends that taxing tourism need not harm tourism. Furthermore, admission fees are an excellent source of revenue to pay for the upkeep of popular natural attractions. In addition, responsibility to raise revenues should go hand in hand with the responsibility to spend. Also, incentives may not be necessary to induce tourism investment. The next lesson is that money spent on collecting basic tourism data is well spent. And finally, in developing tourism, the welfare of residents must be paramount.

Spickard expresses hesitation to speak definitively about Haoles (Whites) in Hawai‘i, but offers these thoughts. Every action by a Haole in Hawai‘i is framed by the history of colonialism, ...
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Spickard expresses hesitation to speak definitively about Haoles (Whites) in Hawai‘i, but offers these thoughts. Every action by a Haole in Hawai‘i is framed by the history of colonialism, dispossession, and continuing racialized stratification of power, wealth, and opportunity. There are four kinds of Haoles in Hawai‘i. By far the majority are tourists and military people, both of whom, however much they may enjoy Hawai‘i, are not part of the fabric of local life. A second group is made up of longterm residents who retain a Haole identity, however much they may know about Hawaiian culture. There is a smaller group of genuine local Haoles, most of whom grew up in the islands, speak Pidgin at least some of the time, and adopt a local lifestyle and view of the world. The major divider between the local Haoles and the rest is the ultimate location of their loyalties—with the colonizers or with the colonized.Less

Local Haole? : Whites, Racial and Imperial Loyalties, and Membership in Hawai‘i

Paul Spickard

Published in print: 2018-03-31

Spickard expresses hesitation to speak definitively about Haoles (Whites) in Hawai‘i, but offers these thoughts. Every action by a Haole in Hawai‘i is framed by the history of colonialism, dispossession, and continuing racialized stratification of power, wealth, and opportunity. There are four kinds of Haoles in Hawai‘i. By far the majority are tourists and military people, both of whom, however much they may enjoy Hawai‘i, are not part of the fabric of local life. A second group is made up of longterm residents who retain a Haole identity, however much they may know about Hawaiian culture. There is a smaller group of genuine local Haoles, most of whom grew up in the islands, speak Pidgin at least some of the time, and adopt a local lifestyle and view of the world. The major divider between the local Haoles and the rest is the ultimate location of their loyalties—with the colonizers or with the colonized.

In this chapter, the significance of photography is examined, both from the perspectives of tourists and of Trobrianders. I argue that photography is fundamental to the tourism narratives, as an act ...
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In this chapter, the significance of photography is examined, both from the perspectives of tourists and of Trobrianders. I argue that photography is fundamental to the tourism narratives, as an act of collection, appropriation, domestication, and validation. I examine how photographs both prefigure and postfigure the touristic experience, and look to Trobriand ideas about photographs (as objects) and photography (as action).Less

Michelle MacCarthy

Published in print: 2016-06-30

In this chapter, the significance of photography is examined, both from the perspectives of tourists and of Trobrianders. I argue that photography is fundamental to the tourism narratives, as an act of collection, appropriation, domestication, and validation. I examine how photographs both prefigure and postfigure the touristic experience, and look to Trobriand ideas about photographs (as objects) and photography (as action).

This chapter describes the historical trajectory through which Batam has been transformed from an obscure island located “between” different centers of commerce and power into a major development ...
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This chapter describes the historical trajectory through which Batam has been transformed from an obscure island located “between” different centers of commerce and power into a major development project and part of a transnational economic zone. In turn, it maps the changing regional forms of mobility and the transformation of space on Batam, thus beginning to describe the place that the migrants and tourists who are the subjects of this book come to inhabit for a period of time. The chapter uses the stories of two elderly Malay fishermen, Pak Awang Ali and Pak Padil, as starting point for considering the historical transformations that have shaped channels of human mobility in the “Malay world,” a region that encompasses contemporary Malaysia, Singapore, and large parts of Indonesia.Less

Borderland Formations

Johan A. Lindquist

Published in print: 2008-10-31

This chapter describes the historical trajectory through which Batam has been transformed from an obscure island located “between” different centers of commerce and power into a major development project and part of a transnational economic zone. In turn, it maps the changing regional forms of mobility and the transformation of space on Batam, thus beginning to describe the place that the migrants and tourists who are the subjects of this book come to inhabit for a period of time. The chapter uses the stories of two elderly Malay fishermen, Pak Awang Ali and Pak Padil, as starting point for considering the historical transformations that have shaped channels of human mobility in the “Malay world,” a region that encompasses contemporary Malaysia, Singapore, and large parts of Indonesia.

This chapter focuses on the ethnically Malay working-class men who travel to Batam in order to escape, at least temporarily, what they perceive as Singapore's overly regulated and expensive society. ...
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This chapter focuses on the ethnically Malay working-class men who travel to Batam in order to escape, at least temporarily, what they perceive as Singapore's overly regulated and expensive society. These working-class men, who experience increasing marginalization in Singapore, gain new forms of power and agency on Batam not through the formal processes of offshore capitalism, but through the possibilities of the liar. The chapter uses these men and their engagements with the liar as an ethnographic vantage point to offer new kinds perspectives on Singapore, Batam, and the Growth Triangle. More directly, conceptualizing the liar from the perspective of the Singaporean tourist highlights the multiplicity and overlapping forms of life that characterize contemporary forms of globalization.Less

Fantasy Island

Johan A. Lindquist

Published in print: 2008-10-31

This chapter focuses on the ethnically Malay working-class men who travel to Batam in order to escape, at least temporarily, what they perceive as Singapore's overly regulated and expensive society. These working-class men, who experience increasing marginalization in Singapore, gain new forms of power and agency on Batam not through the formal processes of offshore capitalism, but through the possibilities of the liar. The chapter uses these men and their engagements with the liar as an ethnographic vantage point to offer new kinds perspectives on Singapore, Batam, and the Growth Triangle. More directly, conceptualizing the liar from the perspective of the Singaporean tourist highlights the multiplicity and overlapping forms of life that characterize contemporary forms of globalization.

Old lineage houses are material embodiments of yangban cultural heritage of the Chosŏn period and of the Confucian tradition that yangban culture is believed to have enacted. It is perhaps because so ...
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Old lineage houses are material embodiments of yangban cultural heritage of the Chosŏn period and of the Confucian tradition that yangban culture is believed to have enacted. It is perhaps because so many of these structures remain in Andong that the region has been equated with the Chosŏn period. Recently these houses have been opened to the public partly as a result of the municipal policy to promote tourism and partly as a result of the house owners' initiatives to find a more realistic way of preserving and maintaining them. This chapter discusses how the old house cultural experience was promoted and marketed in the Andong area as an opportunity for learning about the Confucian cultural tradition of the Chosŏn period as it is enacted in the everyday lives of the descendants of prominent yangban lineages. In this context, yangban are newly constructed as every Korean's common ancestors, and, in the process, the private family realm temporarily transforms into public performance.Less

Okpyo Moon

Published in print: 2010-09-22

Old lineage houses are material embodiments of yangban cultural heritage of the Chosŏn period and of the Confucian tradition that yangban culture is believed to have enacted. It is perhaps because so many of these structures remain in Andong that the region has been equated with the Chosŏn period. Recently these houses have been opened to the public partly as a result of the municipal policy to promote tourism and partly as a result of the house owners' initiatives to find a more realistic way of preserving and maintaining them. This chapter discusses how the old house cultural experience was promoted and marketed in the Andong area as an opportunity for learning about the Confucian cultural tradition of the Chosŏn period as it is enacted in the everyday lives of the descendants of prominent yangban lineages. In this context, yangban are newly constructed as every Korean's common ancestors, and, in the process, the private family realm temporarily transforms into public performance.

This chapter examines the sometimes contradictory perspectives of Thai host-community members, nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioners, and volunteer tourists, using a political ecology ...
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This chapter examines the sometimes contradictory perspectives of Thai host-community members, nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioners, and volunteer tourists, using a political ecology framework. A political ecology framework can highlight the complex historical, political, and economic context of environmental conservation in Mae Nam Village. Using this perspective, the chapter argues that the Northern environmental goals (goals that originate in the Global North or those countries identified by the World Bank as “developed”) and the strategies of Farang volunteer tourists and NGO practitioners tend to overlook preexisting local environmental knowledge, values, and practices that have allowed Mae Nam Village residents to maintain their “pristine forest” over the centuries. In this way, the sometimes disparate perspectives of volunteer tourism participants converge in ironic, contradictory, and complex ways, resulting in some goals that become privileged while other goals become marginalized.Less

“They Came for Nature” : A Political Ecology of Volunteer Tourism Development in Northern Thailand

Mary Mostafanezhad

Published in print: 2015-04-30

This chapter examines the sometimes contradictory perspectives of Thai host-community members, nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioners, and volunteer tourists, using a political ecology framework. A political ecology framework can highlight the complex historical, political, and economic context of environmental conservation in Mae Nam Village. Using this perspective, the chapter argues that the Northern environmental goals (goals that originate in the Global North or those countries identified by the World Bank as “developed”) and the strategies of Farang volunteer tourists and NGO practitioners tend to overlook preexisting local environmental knowledge, values, and practices that have allowed Mae Nam Village residents to maintain their “pristine forest” over the centuries. In this way, the sometimes disparate perspectives of volunteer tourism participants converge in ironic, contradictory, and complex ways, resulting in some goals that become privileged while other goals become marginalized.

This chapter describes how those same industrial families who were responsible for the urbanization of Wuxi City invested in industry and infrastructure in the countryside. It takes the example of ...
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This chapter describes how those same industrial families who were responsible for the urbanization of Wuxi City invested in industry and infrastructure in the countryside. It takes the example of Yanjiaqiao in the northeast of the county, which by the 1930s boasted several factories, many shops, electric lighting, and had urbanized to such an extent that it was known as the ‘Little Wuxi.’ In addition to establishing factories and other businesses, local entrepreneurs invested in rural infrastructure and tourist sites on the shores of Lake Tai. Descriptions of Wuxi in guidebooks and travel magazines show how writers recognized that the county as a whole was urbanizing rapidly. The chapter concludes by examining how changes in the daily lives of farmers in their homes and out in the fields mirrored to some extent those of their urban counterparts.Less

Wuxi Elites and Infrastructure : Urbanization of the Countryside

Toby Lincoln

Published in print: 2015-05-31

This chapter describes how those same industrial families who were responsible for the urbanization of Wuxi City invested in industry and infrastructure in the countryside. It takes the example of Yanjiaqiao in the northeast of the county, which by the 1930s boasted several factories, many shops, electric lighting, and had urbanized to such an extent that it was known as the ‘Little Wuxi.’ In addition to establishing factories and other businesses, local entrepreneurs invested in rural infrastructure and tourist sites on the shores of Lake Tai. Descriptions of Wuxi in guidebooks and travel magazines show how writers recognized that the county as a whole was urbanizing rapidly. The chapter concludes by examining how changes in the daily lives of farmers in their homes and out in the fields mirrored to some extent those of their urban counterparts.

This chapter addresses how the seemingly disparate practices of tourism, anthropological research on Ainu bodies, and control over cultural representations were united through the telescoping effects ...
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This chapter addresses how the seemingly disparate practices of tourism, anthropological research on Ainu bodies, and control over cultural representations were united through the telescoping effects of colonial power. During the rise of urban middle classes and the founding of the Japan Tourist Bureau in 1912, cultural diversity was transformed into an object of pleasure for mass consumption and urbanites became frequent travelers in the northern regions. Ainu who were subjected to the tourist gaze, however, placed their critique of this objectification (misemonoka) at the center of their movement for human rights and dignity. In almost identical language, their Ainu peers rejected researcher prerogatives in using Ainu bodies as “physical material for research”.Less

Tourists, Anthropologists, and Visions of Indigenous Society in Japan

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Published in print: 2013-12-31

This chapter addresses how the seemingly disparate practices of tourism, anthropological research on Ainu bodies, and control over cultural representations were united through the telescoping effects of colonial power. During the rise of urban middle classes and the founding of the Japan Tourist Bureau in 1912, cultural diversity was transformed into an object of pleasure for mass consumption and urbanites became frequent travelers in the northern regions. Ainu who were subjected to the tourist gaze, however, placed their critique of this objectification (misemonoka) at the center of their movement for human rights and dignity. In almost identical language, their Ainu peers rejected researcher prerogatives in using Ainu bodies as “physical material for research”.